The force of gravity on humans forces down the internal organs of the body, such as the heart, liver, and stomach, and also bodily fluids, such as blood and lymph system fluids. Fortunately, the human body has a variety of supporting tissue and mechanisms, including ligament and muscle material, which hold organs in place, and strong hearts that pump blood upward to the brain and the upper extremities.
When people stand up, all vertical structures are affected by gravity. For instance, peoples' spines are pulled down and compressed. Because the force of gravity compresses bones at the discs and joints, people become shorter as they age. Because the organs, too, are pulled down as age increases, supporting tissue, such as supporting muscle and ligaments, become stretched and sag causing the lower abdomen to become enlarged, even without added fat.
Gravity also pulls body fat downward, which contributes to the development of eye bags and double chins. More fat is pulled to the belly, hips, and thighs. Gravity also makes the buttocks and breasts sag. Furthermore, the force of gravity also pulls down blood. As the heart weakens with age, a phenomenon that is well understood, its ability to counter gravity and pump blood up to the head and other small vessels in the upper parts of the body lessens. Gravity also increases metabolic rates, since the body has to counter gravitational force, which increases the speed of aging.
And so as people go through life, they are pulled constantly toward the earth by the natural force of gravity restricting blood flow to the head and causing skin to sag and internal organs and fat to sag downward as a result of the stretching and weakening of support tissue such as ligament and muscle tissue. In a straight head down position feet up position, in which a participant is disposed in a substantially vertical orientation with the feet positioned directly over the head, gravity acts on the body in the opposite direction, which is effectively a direct negative gravity environment, given that a head up position is considered a direct positive gravity environment. Although it is understood that direct negative gravity produces benefits to the internal organs and the vascular system of the human body, the human body cannot sustain a direct head down position for very long, perhaps 20 to 30 minutes, as it becomes very uncomfortable and will eventually cause the participant to faint or black out, due to high pressure to the head. The body is simply not evolved to handle this situation very long. Thus, all the head down exercises used today have such a short time span having little impact to offset the lifelong gravity downward pull.
Given the adverse impact of gravity on the human body, it would be highly desirable to provide new and improved therapeutic methods designed to counter the detrimental impact gravity levies on people during the normal course of life and for imparting meaningful and beneficial biological results to the organs and vascular system of humans.